I would like to start by announcing that my website, which you may recall had been hacked to non-existence about a month ago, is now back up. Kudos to my Web Master, Travis, for having backups and knowing how to get things restored.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

So, we all know that idolatry is a sin. After all, it is the number two commandment in the Big Ten. And we all know that idolatry is when we worship other gods.

But is that really all it is?

I would like to suggest that idolatry is whenever we allow something to get between us and God.

For instance, do you skip going to Holy Day ceremonies because there is a semi-final game on TV?

Or maybe you eat whatever you like to eat and use the traditional Christian excuse that “Yeshua did away with the law”, even though in your heart you know that he didn’t do away with the law because then there would be no law, at all!

Or maybe you don’t even care to try to forgive someone who has hurt you, in whichever way, because you feel they don’t deserve to receive forgiveness.

Well, let me tell you something: every single one of those reasons is placing your desires before God’s desires, which is a wedge between you and God.

In other words, it is idolatry.

When we allow ourselves to let something we want to take precedence over what God says we should, or shouldn’t, do, we are idolaters. And yes, it is something that we allow! Everything you do is a choice, whether you want to believe that or not. I will tell you now the same thing I tell atheists and agnostics: just because you choose to deny something as real doesn’t mean that something isn’t real.

The point today is whether or not you have been told that all a Christian has to obey are the moral laws, and you agree that idolatry is immoral, then consider this:

God is the epitome of morality, so whatever he says is morally just and true, and that means what he told us to do (and not to do) in the Torah is completely moral. Therefore, if you refuse to obey the Torah, then you are, by definition, rejecting the moral laws, which makes you a sinner and an idolater.

Oy veys mir! No, no- that can’t be true! Oh yes- it IS true! When you refuse, for whatever reason, to do what God said to do, which is found only in the Torah, you are placing a wedge between yourself and God.

Now, you may say that you are only following what your religion says, but God has no religion, so what you are really following is someone’s idea of what (in truth) they want to do, and then teach others who are biblically ignorant, that it is what God wants them to do.

Let’s put it to you like this: when you have to face God, and we all will have to face him, and he reads to you all the times in your life you chose to reject what he said in the Torah, and you reply, “But Lord, I was only doing what they told me I should do.”, I believe God might answer you with something to this effect:

“I understand, my child, that you only did what they told you to do, but it is what I say that counts.”

Thank you for being here; that’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!